Sci Fiction Classics Volume 1

by Vol 1 (v1. 2) (epub)

  "No. He was … visiting."

  "May I come in and talk to you about him?"

  He was holding the door three-quarters shut, and so I couldn't see anything in the room but an expensive-looking color TV. He glanced over his shoulder nervously at something behind him. The inner ends of his eyebrows drooped in a frown. He looked back at me and started to say something, then, with a small defiance, shrugged his eyebrows. "Sure, but there's not much I can tell you."

  He pushed the door all the way open and stepped back. It was a good-sized living room come to life from the pages of a decorator magazine. A kitchen behind a half wall was on my right. A hallway led somewhere on my left. Directly in front of me were double sliding glass doors leading to the terrace. On the terrace was a bronzed hunk of beef stretched out nude trying to get bronzer. The hunk opened his eyes and looked at me. He apparently decided I wasn't competition and closed them again. Tall and lanky indicated one of two identical orange-and-brown-striped couches facing each other across a football field–size marble and glass cocktail table. He sat on the other one, took a cigarette from an alabaster box and lit it with an alabaster lighter. As an afterthought, he offered me one.

  "Who was Detweiler visiting?" I asked as I lit my cigarette. The lighter felt cool and expensive in my hand.

  "Maurice—next door," he inclined his head slightly toward 407.

  "Isn't he the one who was killed in an accident last night?"

  He blew a stream of smoke from pursed lips and tapped his cigarette on an alabaster ashtray. "Yes," he said.

  "How long had Maurice and Detweiler known each other?"

  "Not long."

  "How long?"

  He snuffed his cigarette out on pure white alabaster and sat so prim and pristine I would have bet his feces came out wrapped in cellophane. He shrugged his eyebrows again. "Maurice picked him up somewhere the other night."

  "Which night?"

  He thought a moment. "Thursday, I think. Yes, Thursday."

  "Was Detweiler a hustler?"

  He crossed his legs like a forties pinup and dangled his Roman sandal. His lips twitched scornfully. "If he was, he would've starved. He was de-formed!"

  "Maurice didn't seem to mind." He sniffed and lit another cigarette. "When did Detweiler leave?"

  He shrugged. "I saw him yesterday afternoon. I was out last night … until quite late."

  "How did they get along? Did they quarrel or fight?"

  "I have no idea. I only saw them in the hall a couple of times. Maurice and I were … not close." He stood, fidgety. "There's really not anything I can tell you. Why don't you ask David and Murray. They and Maurice are … were thick as thieves."

  "David and Murray?"

  "Across the hall. 408."

  I stood up. "I'll do that. Thank you very much." I looked at the plate glass doors. I guess it would be pretty easy to walk through one of them if you thought it was open. "Are all the apartments alike? Those terrace doors?"

  He nodded. "Ticky-tacky."

  "Thanks again."

  "Don't mention it." He opened the door for me and then closed it behind me. I sighed and walked across to 408. I rang the bell. It didn't play anything, just went bing-bong.

  David (or Murray) was about twenty-five, red-headed, and freckled. He had a slim, muscular body which was also freckled. I could tell because he was wearing only a pair of jeans, cut off very short, and split up the sides to the waistband. He was barefooted and had a smudge of green paint on his nose. He had an open, friendly face and gave me a neutral smile-for-a-stranger. "Yes?" he asked.

  I showed him my ID. Instead of going pale he only looked interested. "I was told by the man in 409 you might be able to tell me something about Andrew Detweiler."

  "Andy?" He frowned slightly. "Come on in. I'm David Fowler." He held out his hand.

  I shook it. "Bert Mallory." The apartment couldn't have been more different from the one across the hall. It was comfortable and cluttered, and dominated by a drafting table surrounded by jars of brushes and boxes of paint tubes. Architecturally, however, it was almost identical. The terrace was covered with potted plants rather than naked muscles. David Fowler sat on the stool at the drafting table and began cleaning brushes. When he sat, the split in his shorts opened and exposed half his butt, which was also freckled. But I got the impression he wasn't exhibiting himself; he was just completely indifferent.

  "What do you want to know about Andy?"

  "Everything."

  He laughed. "That lets me out. Sit down. Move the stuff."

  I cleared a space on the couch and sat. "How did Detweiler and Maurice get along?"

  He gave me a knowing look. "Fine. As far as I know. Maurice liked to pick up stray puppies. Andy was a stray puppy."

  "Was Detweiler a hustler?"

  He laughed again. "No. I doubt if he knew what the word means."

  "Was he gay?"

  "No."

  "How do you know?"

  He grinned. "Haven't you heard? We can spot each other a mile away. Would you like some coffee?"

  "Yes, I would. Thank you."

  He went to the half wall separating the kitchen and poured two cups from a pot that looked like it was kept hot and full all the time. "It's hard to describe Andy. There was something very little-boyish about him. A real innocent. Delighted with everything new. It's sad about his back. Real sad." He handed me a cup and returned to the stool. "There was something very secretive about him. Not about his feelings; he was very open about things like that."

  "Did he and Maurice have sex together?"

  "No. I told you it was a stray puppy relationship. I wish Murray was here. He's much better with words than I am. I'm visually oriented."

  "Where is he?"

  "At work. He's a lawyer."

  "Do you think Detweiler could have killed Maurice?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "He was here with us all evening. We had dinner and played Scrabble. I think he was real sick, but he tried to pretend he wasn't. Even if he hadn't been here I would not think so."

  "When was the last time you saw him?"

  "He left about a half hour before they found Maurice. I imagine he went over there, saw Maurice dead, and decided to disappear. Can't say I blame him. The police might've gotten some funny ideas. We didn't mention him."

  "Why not?"

  "There was no point in getting him involved. It was just an accident."

  "He couldn't have killed Maurice after he left here?"

  "No. They said he's been dead over an hour. What did Desmond tell you?"

  "Desmond?"

  "Across the hall. The one who looks like he smells something bad."

  "How did you know I talked to him and not the side of beef?"

  He laughed and almost dropped his coffee cup. "I don't think Roy can talk."

  "He didn't know nothin' about nothin'." I found myself laughing also. I got up and walked to the glass doors. I slid them open and then shut again. "Did you ever think one of these was open when it was really shut?"

  "No. But I've heard of it happening."

  I sighed. "So have I." I turned and looked at what he was working on at the drafting table. It was a small painting of a boy and girl, she in a soft white dress, and he in jeans and T-shirt. They looked about fifteen. They were embracing, about to kiss. It was quite obviously the first time for both of them. It was good. I told him so.

  He grinned with pleasure. "Thanks. It's for a paperback cover."

  "Whose idea was it that Detweiler have dinner and spend the evening with you?"

  He thought for a moment. "Maurice." He looked up at me and grinned. "Do you know stamps?"

  It took me a second to realize what he meant. "You mean stamp collecting? Not much."

  "Maurice was a philatelist. He specialized in postwar Germany—locals and zones, things like that. He'd gotten a kilo of buildings and wanted to sort them undisturbed."

  I shook my head. "You've lost me. A kilo
of buildings."

  He laughed. "It's a set of twenty-eight stamps issued in the American Zone in 1948 showing famous German buildings. Conditions in Germany were still pretty chaotic at the time, and the stamps were printed under fairly makeshift circumstances. Consequently, there's an enormous variety of different perforations, watermarks, and engravings. Hundreds as a matter of fact. Maurice could spend hours and hours poring over them."

  "Are they valuable?"

  "No. Very common. Some of the varieties are hard to find, but they're not valuable." He gave me a knowing look. "Nothing was missing from Maurice's apartment."

  I shrugged. "It had occurred to me to wonder where Detweiler got his money."

  "I don't know. The subject never came up." He wasn't being defensive.

  "You liked him, didn't you?"

  There was a weary sadness in his eyes. "Yes," he said.

  That afternoon I picked up Birdie Pawlowicz at the Brewster Hotel and took her to Harry Spinner's funeral. I told her about Maurice Milian and Andrew Detweiler. We talked it around and around. The Detweiler boy obviously couldn't' have killed Harry or Milian, but it was stretching coincidence a little bit far.

  After the funeral I went to the Los Angeles Public Library and started checking back issues of the Times. I'd only made it back three weeks when the library closed. The LA Times is thick, and unless the death is sensational or the dead prominent, the story might be tucked in anywhere except the classifieds.

  Last Tuesday, the 26th, a girl had cut her wrists with a razor blade in North Hollywood.

  The day before, Monday, the 25th, a girl had miscarried and hemorrhaged. She had bled to death because she and her boyfriend were stoned out of their heads. They lived a block off Western—very near the Brewster—and Detweiler was at the Brewster Monday.

  Sunday, the 24th, a wino had been knifed in MacArthur Park.

  Saturday, the 23rd, I had three. A knifing in a bar on Pico, a shooting in a rooming house on Irolo, and a rape and knifing in an alley off LaBrea. Only the gunshot victim had bled to death, but there had been a lot of blood in all three.

  Friday, the 22nd, the same day Detweiler checked into the Brewster, a two-year-old boy had fallen on an upturned rake in his backyard on Larchemont—only eight or ten blocks from where I lived on Beachwood. And a couple of Chicano kids had had a knife fight behind Hollywood High. One was dead and the other was in jail. Ah, machismo!

  The list went on and on, all the way back to Thursday, the 7th. On that day was another slashed-wrist suicide near Western and Wilshire.

  The next morning, Tuesday, the 3rd, I called Miss Tremaine and told her I'd be late getting in but would check in every couple of hours to find out if the slinky blonde looking for her kid sister had shown up. She humphed.

  Larchemont is a middle-class neighborhood huddled in between the old wealth around the country club and the blight spreading down Melrose from Western Avenue. It tries to give the impression of suburbia—and does a pretty good job of it—rather than just another nearly downtown shopping center. The area isn't big on apartments or rooming houses, but there are a few. I found the Detweiler boy at the third one I checked. It was a block and a half from where the little kid fell on the rake.

  According to the landlord, at the time of the kid's death Detweiler was playing bridge with him and a couple of elderly old-maid sisters in number twelve. He hadn't been feeling well and had moved out later that evening—to catch a bus to San Diego, to visit his ailing mother. The landlord had felt sorry for him, so sorry he'd broken a steadfast rule and refunded most of the month's rent Detweiler had paid in advance. After all, he'd only been there three days. So sad about his back. Such a nice gentle boy—a writer, you know.

  No, I didn't know, but it explained how he could move around so much without seeming to work.

  I called David Fowler: "Yes, Andy had a portable typewriter, but he hadn't mentioned being a writer."

  And Birdie Pawlowicz: "Yeah, he typed a lot in his room."

  I found the Detweiler boy again on the 16th and the 19th. He'd moved into a rooming house near Silver Lake Park on the night of the 13th and moved out again on the 19th. The landlady hadn't refunded his money, but she gave him an alibi for the knifing of an old man in the park on the 16th and the suicide of a girl in the same rooming house on the 19th. He'd been in the pink of health when he moved in, sick on the 16th, healthy the 17th, and sick again on the 19th.

  It was like a rerun. He lived a block away from where a man was mugged, killed, and robbed in an alley on the 13th—though the details of the murder didn't seem to fit the pattern. But he was sick, had an alibi, and moved to Silver Lake.

  Rerun it on the 10th: a woman slipped in the bathtub and fell through the glass shower doors, cutting herself to ribbons. Sick, alibi, moved.

  It may be because I was always rotten in math, but it wasn't until right then that I figured out Detweiler's timetable. Milian died the 1st, Harry Spinner the 28th, the miscarriage the 25th, the little kid on the 22nd, Silver Lake on the 16th and 19th, etc., etc., etc.

  A bloody death occurred in Detweiler's general vicinity every third day.

  But I couldn't figure out a pattern for the victims: male, female, little kids, old aunties, married, unmarried, rich, poor, young, old. No pattern of any kind, and there's always a pattern. I even checked to see if the names were in alphabetical order.

  I got back to my office at six. Miss Tremaine sat primly at her desk, cleared of everything but her purse and a notepad. She reminded me quite a lot of Desmond. "What are you still doing here, Miss Tremaine? You should've left an hour ago." I sat at my desk, leaned back until the swivel chair groaned twice, and propped my feet up.

  She picked up the pad. "I wanted to give you your calls."

  "Can't they wait? I've been sleuthing all day and I'm bushed."

  "No one is paying you to find this Detweiler person, are they?"

  "No."

  "Your bank statement came today."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Nothing. A good secretary keeps her employer informed. I was informing you."

  "Okay. Who called?"

  She consulted the pad, but I'd bet my last gumshoe she knew every word on it by heart. "A Mrs. Carmichael called. Her French poodle has been kidnapped. She wants you to find her."

  "Ye Gods! Why doesn't she go to the police?"

  "Because she's positive her ex-husband is the kidnapper. She doesn't want to get him in any trouble; she just wants Gwendolyn back."

  "Gwendolyn?"

  "Gwendolyn. A Mrs. Bushyager came by. She wants you to find her little sister."

  I sat up so fast I almost fell out of the chair. I gave her a long, hard stare, but her neutral expression didn't flicker. "You're kidding." Her eyebrows rose a millimeter. "Was she a slinky blonde?"

  "No. She was a dumpy brunette."

  I settled back in the chair, trying not to laugh. "Why does Mrs. Bushyager want me to find her little sister?" I sputtered.

  "Because Mrs. Bushyager thinks she's shacked up somewhere with Mr. Bushyager. She'd like you to call her tonight."

  "Tomorrow. I've got a date with Janice tonight." She reached in her desk drawer and pulled out my bank statement. She dropped it on the desk with a papery plop. "Don't worry," I assured her, "I won't spend much money. Just a little spaghetti and wine tonight and ham and eggs in the morning." She humphed. My point. "Anything else?"

  "A Mr. Bloomfeld called. He wants you to get the goods on Mrs. Bloomfeld so he can sue for divorce."

  I sighed. Miss Tremaine closed the pad. "Okay. No to Mrs. Carmichael and make appointments for Bushyager and Bloomfeld." She lowered her eyelids at me. I spread my hands. "Would Sam Spade go looking for a French poodle named Gwendolyn?"

  "He might if he had your bank statement. Mr. Bloomfeld will be in at two, Mrs. Bushyager at three."

  "Miss Tremaine, you'd make somebody a wonderful mother." She didn't even humph; she just picked up her purse and stalked ou
t. I swiveled the chair around and looked at the calendar. Tomorrow was the 4th.

  Somebody would die tomorrow and Andrew Detweiler would be close by.

  I scooted up in bed and leaned against the headboard. Janice snorted into the pillow and opened one eye, pinning me with it. "I didn't mean to wake you," I said. "What's the matter," she muttered, "too much spaghetti?"

  "No. Too much Andrew Detweiler."

  She scooted up beside me, keeping the sheet over her breasts, and turned on the light. She rummaged around on the nightstand for a cigarette. "Who wants to divorce him?"

  "That's mean, Janice," I groaned.

  "You want a cigarette?"

  "Yeah."

  She put two cigarettes in her mouth and lit them both. She handed me one. "You don't look a bit like Paul Henreid," I said.

  She grinned. "That's funny. You look like Bette Davis. Who's Andrew Detweiler?"

  So I told her.

  "It's elementary, my dear Sherlock," she said. "Andrew Detweiler is a vampire." I frowned at her. "Of course, he's a clever vampire. Vampires are usually stupid. They always give themselves away by leaving those two little teeth marks on people's jugulars."

  "Darling, even vampires have to be at the scene of the crime."

  "He always has an alibi, huh?"

  I got out of bed and headed for the bathroom. "That's suspicious in itself."

  When I came out she said, "Why?"

  "Innocent people usually don't have alibis, especially not one every three days."

  "Which is probably why innocent people get put in jail so often."

  I chuckled and sat on the edge of the bed. "You may be right."

  "Bert, do that again."

  I looked at her over my shoulder. "Do what?"

  "Go to the bathroom."

  "I don't think I can. My bladder holds only so much."

  "I don't mean that. Walk over to the bathroom door."

  I gave her a suspicious frown, got up, and walked over to the bathroom door. I turned around, crossed my arms, and leaned against the door frame. "Well?"

  She grinned. "You've got a cute rear end. Almost as cute as Burt Reynolds'. Maybe he's twins."

  "What?" I practically screamed.

  "Maybe Andrew Detweiler is twins. One of them commits the murders and the other establishes the alibis."